July Employment Roundup: Good news for Belfast, Athlone, Sligo and Limerick

July’s employment roundup continues with good news for Belfast, Athlone, Sligo, Dublin, Limerick, and Kerry, but bad news for the North with store closures by Poundworld.

Job vacancies (Pic: Inside Ireland.ie)

London-based Consulting firm opens new development centre in Belfast with the creation of 10 new jobs

The recent start-up company McGinnis Consulting has said it plans to open a new ten-person financial services and software development centre in West Belfast which will offer ‘opportunities to experienced professionals to work on international blue chip projects’. The firm said there are ‘high quality Business Analyst and Project Management roles on offer, working in a niche financial services market’.

Marius McGinnis, Managing Director of McGinnis Consulting, and originally from Northern Ireland, said:

“Northern Ireland is in possession of one of the best educated financial services workforces in Europe, so it was a natural choice to locate our business here.”

Invest Northern Ireland has offered the company £60,000 towards the new jobs, which it said ‘will offer an average salary of £40,000’.

30 jobs for Cork by DataStax over next three years

DataStax announced the opening of a new office in Cork on 30 July and said it expects to create 30 jobs over the next 3 years with ‘ten of the roles being filled immediately in Finance and IT’.

Around 500 jobs over next few years for Donegal
Abbott in Donegal has announced that it is to expand its existing manufacturing facility in Lurganboy which will result in the creation of around 500 new jobs over the next number of years.

IDA Ireland’s Executive Director Mary Buckley said:

“Abbott is a global leader in healthcare. The company has been in Ireland for over 70 years employing c.3,000 people at nine Irish sites. This expansion of Abbott Diabetes Care, and the c 500 jobs it will create in the coming years, is terrific news for Donegal and the North West which is a key area of focus for us.”

London surveying consultancy to create up to 16 new roles in Belfast

GIA, a surveying and design consultancy is setting up a new office in Belfast with up to 16 new roles.

Kevin Francis, Partner at GIA, said the company has chosen to expand with a new office in Northern Ireland ‘due to an increase in demand for our bespoke consultancy service, particularly in relation to Rights of Light and planning matters’.

“The roles we will initially be recruiting for are Rights of Light surveyors and consultants. The new team will offer specialist advice and solutions to complex Rights of Light cases, with a continued focus on projects in London and across the UK. With good transport links we are confident Northern Ireland is the right choice for this new office.”

Limerick Start Ups
New figures show a 23% increase in start-ups in Limerick for the first half of 2018.

Vision-net, A CRIF Company, said the findings suggest that 440 new start-ups were established in Limerick between January and June – representing a 23.2% on the same period in 2017.

Mr Price
Retail discount chain Mr Price has announced it is to create 200 jobs over the next two years. Mr Price said it will open a central warehousing base in Cornamaddy, Athlone, Co Westmeath.

Mr Price is owned by the Crinion family and has 42 stores around the country.

It said it intended to take on 80 staff members before Christmas and 120 more in the following two years.

Co Tyrone manufacturing firm announces 200 new staff

Co Tyrone-based Mallaghan Engineering Ltd said it is recruiting over 200 additional staff, and is also investing in production capabilities and R&D, skills in a significant expansion at its Dungannon headquarters.

“ This announcement is fantastic news for Mid Ulster and Northern Ireland’s manufacturing industry. The 210 additional staff the company expects to recruit over the next five years will, once in place, generate over £5 million annually in additional salaries to the Northern Ireland economy. ”
–Alastair Hamilton, CEO, Invest NI

Mallaghan Engineering Limited designs, manufactures and supplies ground support equipment for the global aviation industry, primarily to service commercial aircraft. Its principal products are high lift trucks for catering, cabin cleaning and facilitating restricted movement passengers as well as de-icing rigs, water and waste trucks, baggage conveyors and various forms of passenger stairs.

The company is developing an airport apron bus as part of its R&D investment and expects to add this new product to its portfolio by the end of 2018.

Poundworld to close all stores in NI
Poundworld confirmed on 19 July that it is to close all of 12 stores in Northern Ireland, affecting 188 employees. Deloitte, which was appointed joint administrator to Poundworld announced that all the branches in the UK will shut.

The stores in Derry, Omagh, Armagh and Cookstown will close at the end of the month, while the others are due to close by August 10.

Cerner to create 50 new roles

Cerner said it will create 50 new research and development job positions to join its Dublin-based Intellectual Property (IP) development team, with the support of the Irish Government through IDA Ireland.

On 16th July, Cerner, a supplier of health and care technology and services, announced plans to ‘grow its Dublin hub for research and development’, and will create 50 new roles.

The positions will be ‘focussed on R&D and the improvement of data intelligence and population health management for its European clients’.

New roles to be recruited include software engineers, software architects, designers and data visualisation developers, with different levels of knowledge and experience.

85 new high-tech positions for Limerick region

BD, a leading global medical technology company, today announced the creation of 85 new jobs for the Limerick region. The announcement was made as Minister for Trade, Employment, Business, EU Digital Single Market and Data Protection Pat Breen T.D., officially opened BD’s Research Centre Ireland (RCI) in Limerick’s National Technology Park. The €21 million investment in BD’s new centre of excellence has already seen 100 jobs recruited for the facility in 2017 and early 2018. The announcement of these 85 additional positions will bring the total number of employees across BD’s two Limerick sites to 285.

Doughnut chain to create 150 jobs

US doughnut chain Krispy Kreme is to hire 150 people to staff its new Irish factory store in Blanchardstown in Dublin in September.

Krispy Kreme has more than 1,300 stores in 31 countries and it Ireland is the third European country the company has expanded into after the UK and Iceland.

SkOUT Secure Intelligence is creating 30 ‘high-value jobs’ with the opening of its new EMEA HQ in Portlaoise, Co Laois. The US-based company, which was founded by Irish entrepreneur Aidan Kehoe, is locating its EMEA headquarters in Portlaoise.

In its initial phase, SkOUT will create 30 high-value jobs at its EMEA HQ as it expands its client base throughout Europe. Staff functions at the new location in Portlaoise will be divided between management, sales and business development, engineering and technical support.

SkOUT said the recruitment process will start immediately.

Redundancies

New figures from the NI Statistics and Research Agency confirmed there were 792 redundancies in June 2018 in Northern Ireland, an increase on the previous month. The highest proportion of confirmed redundancies were found in Manufacturing

EY Creating 95 jobs for Belfast

The consultancy firm EY has announced it is creating 95 jobs at its Belfast operations. The company, once known as Ernst and Young, said the types of roles on offer will be in accountancy, tax, cybersecurity and IT and 45 of them will be graduate roles.

EY recently announced the creation of 520 jobs across its 7 offices across the island of Ireland.

Athone to get 200 staff over 4 years from Belfast-based company

Neueda Technologies, a privately-owned IT Training, development and consulting services company headquartered in Belfast, is establishing a Software Engineering Hub in Athlone, Co Westmeath, employing 200 staff over four years.

The project is supported by the Irish Government through IDA Ireland.

The company says more than 70 members of staff have been hired already with that number expected to grow to over 80 by the end of the year.

The new roles are almost exclusively for technology specialists including experienced software developers, cloud engineers and agile practitioners.

David Bole, founder and owner of Neueda Technologies said:

“After considering several international locations for our new engineering hub, we opted for Athlone in January 2018 and I can say that we wish we had set up here years ago. With one-third of our current positions already filled, we continue to be impressed with the level of technical and engineering talent available to us in the Midlands, particularly considering our very high hiring-bar. “I am delighted to be here today to welcome this exciting news, which will bring 200 quality new jobs over the next 4 years. This large expansion of Neueda’s operation here in Athlone is a welcome boost for the Midlands. It is also a great vote of confidence in what the region has to offer and a testament to the talent and skillset of the existing staff.”

Phibro announces 150 new jobs for Sligo

US-based animal health company Phibro Animal Health Corporation has announced up to 150 jobs to be created in Sligo over five years. The company will be located at the facility vacated by Eli Lilly – Elanco in 2016 in Finisklin.

The company is a diversified animal health and nutrition company which employs over 1,400 people globally with a direct presence in 33 countries.

“It really has been a fantastic few weeks for Sligo with major jobs announcements from Abtran, E3 Retail, and Live Tiles, showing how the county is benefiting from both indigenous and FDI investment. Since January almost 700 jobs have been created in Sligo.”

IT company to create 40 jobs over 2 years

Ireland’s only end-to-end IT and communications service provider, announced on 05 July that it will double its workforce from 40 to 80 employees by 2020, with positions in both its Dublin and Cork offices.

The new jobs are being created as part of a €4 million investment that will fund company growth and acquisitions.

Paradyn is the newly created company formed as a result of the merger of Exigent Networks, Irish Telecom and Netforce.

Paradyn has already started recruiting for the new roles, which will help to support its expanded managed services. The company will fill positions primarily in the areas of finance, network engineering, technical solutions architecture, technical sales and support, marketing and business development.

US law firm to create 150 jobs for Belfast

Global law firm Baker McKenzie which currently employs 300 people in Belfast, is creating an additional 150 new posts at its City Quays Office.

Spectrum Wellness announces 100 new jobs

Irish company Spectrum Wellness announced on 3 July the creation of 100 new jobs based in Dublin, with recruitment for 40 of them already underway.

Spectrum Wellness provides health and wellness programmes for staff across more than 1,000 firms in Ireland.

Kerry fintech firm Fexco creating 175 jobs

Irish fintech company Fexco has announced 175 jobs as part of a three years expansion at its headquarters in Killorglin, Co Kerry.

The new roles includes ICT engineering, software and sales, and it is understood recruitment is underway.

Limerick company creating 30 jobs over 2 years

A Limerick based corrugated packaging company announced on 03 June the creation of up to 30 new jobs over the next two years.

Rigid Containers currently employs 95 people at its operations in the Galvone Business Park, Limerick.

US software firm SmashFly invests in Belfast with 70 new roles

Massachusetts-based SmashFly Technologies has confirmed the official opening of a new office in Belfast and the creation of 70 new roles.

Invest NI has offered £455,000 towards the creation of the new roles which will ‘contribute over £3 million annually in salaries to the Northern Ireland economy’.

SmashFly said their new team will include software development engineers, ‘with a focus on machine learning and artificial intelligence, but will also function as a full-scale sales, marketing, and operations hub for UK and European expansion’.

SmashFly offers software solutions for companies wishing to run more effective recruitment campaigns.

Alan Wilson, Head of International Investment, Invest Northern Ireland said:

“This new centre in Belfast is SmashFly’s first investment outside of the US. The company will be recruiting both graduate and experienced software engineering roles, plus a sales and marketing team.”

Inside Ireland

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affecting communities in Ireland. Its contributors come from all over Ireland and
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